The Amazing Spider-Man 2 [Review]

It seems that with the premiere of a new Spider-Man movie, there has to be a game to go with it, as with any superhero movie for that matter. Most superhero games are known to be mind-numbingly mediocre at best, and there’s a ton of them that tend to populate the bargain bin. There’s the Batman Arkham series that proves to be a great exception to the rule, and you’d think that would give other developers a template to work with. It did, but it still doesn’t help much, like with this game.

As with its predecessor and many other Spider-Man games before it, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 game was developed by Beenox and published by Activision. Beenox should have the Spider-Man game formula down by now and create something that should be Marvel’s prime superhero game (that is not Marvel vs. Capcom 3). There is a sliver of that hope in this game, but only just a sliver. It plays well enough for the most part, but the sum of its parts make for a duller image than what’s expected.

The story starts off with the basic Spider-Man origin story of Uncle Ben being shot by an escaping thief. Two years later, Spider-Man is still looking for Uncle Ben’s killer while having to deal with whatever is wrong in the city. There’s also OSCORP with Harry Osborn at the helm, agreeing to work with Wilson Fisk (also known as Kingpin). There is a whole slew of characters that can be encountered throughout the game, and it makes for a fun review for fans of the comic and an introduction for those who don’t know much about Spider-Man.

However, it seems that Activision wasn’t able to get the rights to Andrew Garfield’s likeness, so Peter Parker looks different in this movie tie-in game. Gwen Stacy is nowhere to be found, even though Emma Stone’s portrayal of her was prominent in the movie. Instead, she is replaced by Felicia Hardy, who later becomes Black Cat and alternates between helping and flirting with Spider-Man. You do get to see Stan Lee though in a comic book store, and he serves as a mentor of sorts for Peter Parker in this game (which is quite endearing).

You get to go around the city by swinging around with your web shooters, which are still kind of fun for the most part. Then there’s the combat system, which is basically similar to that of the Batman Arkham games in most respects, which is understandable since that fighting style is a lot more fitting for Spider-Man than Batman. But then again, with three Batman Arkham games out, gamers may feel that it’s a bit old and Beenox could’ve added something extra to it.

Most of the other gameplay elements have that same worn-out feel to them as the basics of swinging around the city to find crime to fight is also present in a lot of other games before this. There are also indoor sequences that are not any different, letting you do a set number of things throughout the singleplayer campaign. Since Spider-Man has a set number of abilities and no gadgets other than his web-shooters, there isn’t much to play with other than the various costumes you can unlock from different iterations of the comic.

If you like the web-swinging action, then maybe that and collecting costumes are the only good things that this game can offer you. It’s still good fun for Spider-Man fans who get a kick out of stuff like this, but it’s still not as brilliant as it could really be as a game.